Situation

A system running one of the product versions listed above should be updated to SLES 11 Service Pack 3 or SLED 11 Service Pack 3.

Resolution

SLES/SLED 11 Service Pack 3 is a full
product; a variety of methods for updating a system
exist.

Don't panic:
This document is quite long and detailed, but don't be afraid. In fact
the update procedure is very simple, straight-forward and (in most
cases) self-explaining. Just pick the method that suits your needs best
and start with it.

Important note: After
completing any form of update, run the command "rcrpmconfigcheck", then look at the contents of the file /var/adm/rpmconfigcheck.
This file contains a list of configuration files that could not be
updated automatically. These files must be checked and the
configurations adjusted manually. Also please note cross-architecture upgrades (32-bit to 64-bit and 64-bit to 32-bit) are not supported.

Upgrading OES, OES2, and OES11

See the Open Enterprise Server 11 SP2 documentation for details on how to upgrade.

Upgrading SUSE Manager 1.2 and 1.7

SUSE Manager 1.2/1.7 appliances can not be upgraded to SLES 11 SP3 at this time!

Upgrading SUSE Studio Onsite

SUSE Studio Onsite can not be upgraded to SLES 11 SP3 at this time!

Upgrading SLES 8, SLES 9, and NLD 9

There is no supported direct upgrade
path from SLES 8, SLES 9, and NLD 9. Instead it is recommended to perform a new installation.

There
is
no
supported direct migration path to SLES/SLED 11 SP3. An update has to
be performed from SLES/SLED 10 GA to SP 1, then to SP 2,
further to SP 3, and then to SP4 by using the respective boot media.

Procedure for upgrading from SLES 10 and SLED 10 Service Pack 4

The supported migration path from SLES/SLED 10 SP4 to SLES/SLED 11 Service Pack 3 is by
using the SLES/SLED 11 SP 3 boot media. See the respective section below.

Upgrading from SLES / SLED 11 (GA version, and Service Pack 1)

There
is
no
supported direct migration path to SLES/SLED 11 SP3. An update hast to
be performed from SLES/SLED 11 GA to SP 1, then further to SP 2 by
using the respective boot media.

NOTE: The default value for RUN_PARALLEL in /etc/sysconfig/boot has changed from "yes" to "no" with SP2. When upgrading to SP2 the old value still remains.

Procedure for upgrading from SLES / SLED 11 SP2

There are different supported ways for updating a SUSE Linux
Enterprise 11 system to SP3 level. Users can either update to SP3 by
using the online update tools to install the respective patches or update using the SP3 installation media.

For installing SP3 via the respective patches, the following tools
are supported:

1) YaST ("yast2 wagon")

2) zypper

Alternatively, the full SP3 media (DVD ISO
image) can be downloaded and one of the following procedures can be used, especially in case
of environments without network access:

3) by booting from SLES/SLED 11 SP3 mediaSLES 11 SP3 Release Notes

Update to SP3 via patches

Attention: The update process has to be done completely from
beginning to reboot. There is only a limited chance to revert changes.
Furthermore, the server has to be connected online during the
whole update process. Prerequisites: Users have to make
sure to have the system registered. If this is not done already, it can
either be registered by using the "Novell Customer Center
Configuration" module in YaST or by using the suse_register commandline
tool. This will add update sources to the system.

1) Update by using YaST and/or Update Applet

Start the Online-Update module (YOU) from the YaST control center.

Check,
if all available patches that are named "You update for Software update
stack" are installed. If this is not the case, those patches will
automatically be preselected. Press 'Accept' to apply those updates.
Among others, this will install updates of libzypp, satsolver,
yast2-wagon, yast2-pkgbindings, etc.
After installing those, YOU will restart itself.

Now it is
possible to install all other updates that are available
for SLE 11 SP2. The system needs to be rebooted afterwards, because the
kernel and/or other important system components are updated.

Attention for SLED users: because of a dependency conflict open up "yast2 repositories" and enable the repository named SLED11-Extras. On SLES this extra step is not needed.

The
tray applications kupdateapplet or gnome-packagekit will display a
message that a distribution upgrade is available and start the YaST2
module 'wagon' on request. If the gnome desktop is being used, but the
gnome-packagekit applet is not started automatically on login, go ahead
as follows:

After
the next login the gnome-packagekit will start automatically and open
up a message that a distribution upgrade is available.

As an alternative to using the tray application open up a root shell and run '/usr/sbin/wagon &'.

yast2-wagon contains a workflow to upgrade the system to the next Service Pack level. On the welcome page press "Next".

yast2-wagon will do an automatic self update if needed.

In
the
following dialogue select how to migrate. Select "Customer
Center" if the update repositories should be used, or select "Custom URL"
if you want to specify the update source manually (see the respective
section below). In most cases "Customer Center" should be the right
choice. If you want to review the repositories changes yourself,
additionally select "Check Automatic Repository Changes". Click "Next".

A
re-registration of the system against the Novell Customer Center will be done. During the registration
process the appropriate SP3 update catalogs (11-SP3-Pool and SP3-Updates) will be added. The
SLE 11 SP1/SP2 catalogs will be removed (SP1-Pool, SP1-Updates, SP2-Core, and SP2-Updates). Click "Next".

The success
dialog-popup at the end informs about which repositories were added (click
on the "Details" Button).

If
you have selected "Check Automatic Repository Changes", the list of
repositories will be displayed, providing the opportunity to manually
enable/disable/add/delete repositories. Klick "Ok" when finished.

A proposal screen (named "Distribution Updrade Settings") is now listed with the following sections:

Add-On Products: Third Party add-on products can be added here.

Update
Options:
This shows what will happen with the product. Temporary
migration products (e.g. SUSE_SLES-SP3-migration) will be removed, real
products (e.g. SUSE_SLES) will be upgraded. Further, it can be selected,
if all packages should be downloaded before upgrading (this is the
default) or if the packages should be downloaded and installed one by
one.

Packages: shows some statistics about rpm packages to update, to install and to remove.

Backup: some backup options.

Please note: If you changed your mind and want to abort the upgrade to SP3,
click "Back" then "Abort". In this case a rollback is triggered to
bring the system back to SLE 11 SP2 level. Further the migration
products are removed, a re-registration is performed and the newly
added repositories are removed.

To continue the upgrade to SP3 press "Next" -> "Start Update".

The following steps are executed:

The update of the rpm packages is performed.

SuSEconfig is executed.

A message to reboot the system is displayed (Press "Ok").

A
registration of the final SP3 product(s) takes place. Please note that only the SLE 11 SP3 catalogs need to stay enabled.

After a reboot the system is on SP3 level.

1.1) Using a "Custom URL" for updating with YaST

Start yast2 wagon as stated above.

In the "Update method" dialogue select "Custom URL".

A
list of repositories will be displayed, providing the opportunity to
manually enable/disable/add/delete repositories. In here it is possible
to manually adjust installation- and update repositories.

Add
the SP3 update source(s). This can either be the SP3 installation media
or the new SP3 repositories (SP3-Pool and SP3-Updates).

Klick "Ok" when finished and continue with the "Distribution Upgrade Settings" dialogue as stated above.

2) Update by using zypper

Open a root shell.

Run 'zypper ref -s' to refresh all services and repositories.

Run 'zypper update -t patch' to install package management updates.

Now it is possible to install all available updates for SLES/SLED 11 SP2: run 'zypper update -t patch' again.

(As
a sidenote: if you want to use the above command in a script for an
unattended upgrade, the command would be: "zypper --non-interactive
patch --auto-agree-with-licenses --with-interactive")

Now the installed products contain information about distribution upgrades
and which migration products should be installed to perform the
migration. Read the migration product informations from
/etc/products.d/*.prod and install them. Use the following
command:

zypper se -t product | grep -h -- "-migration" | cut -d\| -f2

A sample output could be as follows:

SUSE_SLES-SP3-migrationsle-sdk-SP3-migration

Install these migration products (example):

zypper in -t product sle-sdk-SP3-migration SUSE_SLES-SP3-migration

run 'suse_register -d 2 -L /root/.suse_register.log' to register the
products in order to get the corresponding SP3 Update repositories.

Attention for SLED users: because of a dependency conflict run "zypper mr -e SLED11-Extras" to enable the SLED11-Extras repository. On SLES this extra step is not needed.

Run 'zypper ref -s' to refresh services and repositores.

Check
the repositories using 'zypper lr'. Important: if needed, disable
the SP1/SP2 Pool/Core/Updates repositories manually and enable the new SP3 (SP3-Pool,
SP3-Updates) repositories:

zypper mr --disable <repo-alias>

zypper mr --enable <repo-alias>

Then
perform a dist upgrade by using the following command (example for
SLES, please adjust catalog names in case SLED is updated):

As an alternative to downloading the updates for each single
client system from the Novell update server, it is possible to use
Subscription Management Tool for SUSE Linux Enterprise to mirror the
updates to a local server. This tool acts as Novell Customer
Center proxy both for client registrations and as software update
repository. The SMT documentation at http://www.suse.com/documentation/smt11/ gives an overview of its features as well as instructions on how to implement it.

Update via using a SLE 11 SP3 installation media

3) Update by booting from a SLES/SLED 11 SP3 media

To start the standard update via DVD, reboot the
computer with this medium in it's DVD drive. Perform a system
update instead of a fresh installation. To achive this,
select"Installation" -> Select language and keyboard layout ->
Agree to
the License -> Select "Update an Existing System" instead of "New
Installation".

3.1) Update by booting off a SP3 network installation
source

It is also possible to provide the installation media via
network. The SLE 11 Service-Pack 3 media contains a complete product. So it can be
added to an installation server in the same way as every other SUSE
LINUX Enterprise product. The procedure on how to setup an installation
server and on how to add
the service pack is described in the product documentation. For SLES 11 have
a look into chapter 14.2 of the deployment guide. The document is
available online under http://www.suse.com/documentation/sles11/.

To start the update, go ahead as follows:

A bootable medium is needed to initialize the process. Booting via
network/PXE is also possible. For PXE boot configuration examples see
chapter 14.3 in the SLES 11 deployment guide (online available at http://www.suse.com/documentation/sles11/ ).

Boot the machine and choose "Installation".

Change
the
installation source via the "F4" key and enter the IP and path to the
installation source or select "SLP" if this protocol is configured
on your installation server.

Disclaimer

This Support Knowledgebase provides a valuable tool for NetIQ/Novell/SUSE customers and parties interested in our products and solutions to acquire information, ideas and learn from one another. Materials are provided for informational, personal or non-commercial use within your organization and are presented "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND.